Frederic Ozanam defends the Truth and assists the poor in post-Revolutionary France, setting the stage for the Catholic Social Thought of today.

1. Frederic Ozanam:
Social Justice Vision
+ Personal Action

2. Social Justice Vision
Frederic Ozanam’s life was a dramatic fusion of intellectual achievement

3. Social Justice Vision
Personal Action
and direct, personal action

4. Social Justice Vision
Personal Action
to alleviate the poverty of the least amongst us.

5. Ozanam was an earnest
advocate of Catholic
democracy. He viewed
that the Church should
adapt itself to the
changed political
conditions resulting from
the French Revolution.
Social Justice Vision

6. The prevalent notion was
that the Catholic Church
had done far more to
enslave than to elevate
the human mind.
Social Justice Vision

7. In his years as a student
at the University of Paris
at the Sorbonne,
professors were using
their academic positions
as a platform for their
rationalist ideas against
the Church.
Social Justice Vision

8. Confronted by that
situation, Frederic was
impelled to a battle for
the truth. His faith
demanded a militant
attitude. He knew how to
valiantly defend the
fundamental Truths of
the Faith.
Social Justice Vision

9. First, in his writings he
dwelt upon important
contributions of historical
Christianity, and the
Catholic Church from the
time of Christ through
the Middle Ages.
Social Justice Vision

10. Second, a grand master
of speech, Frederic
eloquently presented the
Catholic Church as a
paradigm for the
restoration of society in
his time.
Social Justice Vision

11. He fearlessly championed
workers’ rights,
including the right to join
labor unions.
Social Justice Vision

12. While a law professor at
Lyon, Ozanam developed
his central thesis of the
“salaire naturel”— the
natural wage, a concept
that became the
precursor to the living
wage movement.
Social Justice Vision

13. The working man, he
believed, was by nature
entitled, at a minimum, to
a wage sufficient to
provide for the
necessities of life, the
education of his children,
and for the support of his
old age.
Social Justice Vision

14. Ozanam’s writing laid the
groundwork for Catholic
social-justice teaching,
helping set the stage for
the great encyclicals on
the rights of workers,
starting with Pope Leo
XIII’s Rerum Novarum (On
Labor) in 1891.
Social Justice Vision

15. His aim was to be a
missionary of the faith in
the world of science; his
dream was to bring about
the renewal of society
under the guidance of
the Catholic Church.
Social Justice Vision

16. Ozanam said:
“We have two lives:
one to look for the Truth
and defend it, and the
other to practice it.”
Social Justice Vision

17. He well merits being
proclaimed today (in this
Year of Faith) “the patron
of all apologists.” The
combination of his
intellectual clarity and his
testimony to charity
make him an axis for the
new evangelization.
Social Justice Vision

18. What comments would
you make on Ozanam’s
social justice vision? Have
you changed any ideas
you used to have on
these subjects? What
examples would you
show others to help them
understand the issues?
Reflect

19. Ozanam was that
rarest of intellectuals:
one who served—
directly, personally,
throughout his entire
adult life—the
immediate needs of
the poor.
Intellectual Achievement Personal Action

20. He did not defer
social action until
after he was
professionally
established...
Intellectual Achievement Personal Action

21. Intellectual Achievement
Rather, he saw the
cold misery of the
poor in Paris as a
twenty-year-old
student, and he
carried wood and coal
to them in their
tenement slums.
Personal Action

22. As a twenty-year-old
law student, in 1833,
he founded the St.
Vincent de Paul
Society; it soon
became the largest
Catholic charity in the
world.
Intellectual Achievement Personal Action

23. He founded it not by
drafting sophisticated
corporate charters
and negotiating
favorable tax
arrangements but,
rather, by direct
personal witness.
Intellectual Achievement Personal Action

24. Committed to do
more than talk about
faith, Frederic and his
small group met
weekly to contribute
to a secret collection
and then visit the
poor in their homes.
Intellectual Achievement Personal Action

25. They developed their
method of service
under the guidance of
Sister (now Blessed)
Rosalie Rendu, D.C.,
who was prominent
in her service in the
slums of Paris.
Intellectual Achievement Personal Action

26. The poor were not an
abstraction; they
were, and are, his
brothers in Christ.
Intellectual Achievement Personal Action

27. Unlike many liberal
French Catholics (to
say nothing of
conservative
royalists), he did not
fear and loathe the
poor; he literally
embraced them.
Intellectual Achievement Personal Action

28. He wrote: "The
beloved daughter of
the faith is charity,
and without it faith
has no reason to
exist."
Intellectual Achievement Personal Action

29. “Do we remain inert
in the middle of a
world that suffers and
moans?”
Intellectual Achievement Personal Action

30. Which of my beliefs
do I live out well, and
which not so well?
Reflect

31. Ozanam was always an activist in his soul. When
he was just 18, in January 1831, he wrote:
I will be delighted if some friends gather around
me! Then, if we join our efforts, we could create
something together, and others would join us,
and perhaps one day all society will join under this
protective shade: Catholicism, full of youth and
strength, will rise up suddenly upon the world.

32. At a time when the Catholic
Church was on the defensive and
under assault, especially in
France, Ozanam was unfailingly
optimistic, affirmative, and
progressive.

33. Perhaps there was considerable utopianism
and naiveté in much of Ozanam’s worldview,
in believing that private charity could
significantly ameliorate deeply embedded
structural poverty. Nevertheless, he firmly
believed that the widespread practice of
direct, personal, individual charity to
individual poor was the best hope for
avoiding social disaster.

34. Sources:
1. Verheyde, Christian (2013-04-02). 15 Days of Prayer
with Blessed Frédéric Ozanam. New City Press.
2. Antoine Frederic Ozanam: Building the Good Society by
David L. Gregory
3. Wikipedia: Frederic Ozanam
4. Frederic Ozanam, Grand Apologist of the Faith in the
19th Century by Father Teodoro Barquín, C.M.